Volunteers to protect Tahoe watershed signs
Volunteers are protecting the “Entering the Lake Tahoe Watershed — Help Protect It!” signs that were installed in August 2014.
The signs are near Daggett Summit on Kingsbury Grade, Spooner Summit on Highway 50 and on the Mount Rose Highway.
Tahoe Douglas Rotary Club will maintain the signs on Daggett and Spooner summits. The Mount Rose is being cared for by Mark and Lisa Bruce, and Chris and Joy Benna of Reno.
“The signs are meant to help remind the millions of people who visit Lake Tahoe each year that they are entering a special place and have a duty to help protect its famously clear waters and environment,” a Tahoe Regional Planning Agency spokesperson said at the time of their installation. Each sign cost $35,000.
$ 105,000 for 3 signs? REALLY? Perfect example of misspent funds.
35 grand for a freaking SIGN!? Are they made of gold? Absolutely disgusting. I hope all 3 get struck by lightning.
$35K each for these signs is wholly ridiculous. Vehicle traffic on Highway 50 passes too quickly to be able to read the sign copy. Complete waste of public funds by bureaucrats living in their own unproductive, unaccomplished imagination.
How many people understand what a watershed actually is?
What does protecting the signs entail and cost? If they were installed with public funds, why no maintenance funds? I guess at the cost of $35K each it would be a hard sell to get any more $$$$ to keep them looking nice. Do the signs really serve the purpose they are intended? As previously stated people driving by won’t really get the message and should already know that Lake Tahoe is an Outstanding National Resource Water. In 1968, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) granted Lake Tahoe the status of Outstanding National Resource Water (ONRW). This designation affords the highest level of protection, strictly forbidding degradation of water quality. However, since receiving the status, there has been a decline of Lake Tahoe’s clarity at a rate of nearly one foot per year (measured by lowering a dinner plate sized disk, known as a Secchi disk, into the lake until it is no longer visible). Many factors have contributed to the degradation of the Lake Tahoe Basin’s environmental quality. These factors include increasing resident and tourist populations, urban storm water runoff, habitat destruction, air pollution, soil erosion, roads and road maintenance, and loss of natural landscapes capable infiltrating rainfall runoff.
Who paid for the signs and is there one on hwy 50 at Echo Summit ?
@Steven, The TRPA can tell you who paid for the signs, and apparently the signs are only in Nevada.
http://www.trpa.org/new-gateway-signs-mark-nevada-entrances-to-lake-tahoe-watershed/
Maybe if they had spent $70k per sign I might have noticed them by now.
Whip-Thanks
From the website…
The Lake Tahoe Environmental Gateway Signage Project was paid for with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection as well as funding from the Lake Tahoe License Plate Program run by Nevada Division of State Lands.
The agencies are looking to partner with community organizations to adopt the signs and help ensure they remain attractive and in good repair. TRPA is also seeking funding to install more signs on California roadway entrances into the Lake Tahoe Basin.
I see one every time I drive up Kingsbury right at the summit on the Valley side. They are beautifully done. Unfortunately lots of small print that cannot be read from the road as you drive by at the speed limit of 45. Same goes for the one on Spooner. It is a nice reminder for me that I am entering the Tahoe Basin. But what are they really saying to the thousands of visitors that pass over the summits? Careful you don’t bring in any invasive species? Don’t spill harmful materials that may end up in the Lake? Could not tell you. Perhaps next time I drive by I will have to stop, get out of my car, walk up to the sign and read the fine print.